PAPal Therapy: Ohio Right to Life's Quick and easy adoption bill - Hearing 1

This afternoon I attended the first hearing of HB 307, Ohio Right to Life's cheap and easy adoption scheme that I wrote about last month.  I suggest you go there first for background.before you continue here.  For those not so inclined, here's a  cheat sheet:  HB 307:

• Decreases the waiting time for adoption finalization from 6-months - 1 year  to 60 days
• Decreases the eligibility time a man can file with the Ohio Putative Father’s Registry (PFR) from 30 days  to 7.
• Requires adoption agencies and adoption lawyers to inform fetal fathers (before the birth of the child)  that an adoption plan is being made; thus, giving them more time to file with the PRF (if they can find it)
• Increases the Ohio adoption tax credit from $1500 to $10,000 to be spread out over four years, substantially offsetting the cost  of the adoption
•  Requires adoption agencies and adoption lawyers to make living expense payments provided by paps (prospective adoptive parents)  up to $3000 (in current law) directly to service providers (doctors, landlords, utilities), not to “birthmothers” themselves.
• Allows paps, lawyers, and adoption agencies  to advertise publicly or "birthmothers."

After the Columbus Dispatch broke the story that the bill was about to be introduced, things got quiet. When I contacted sponsor Rep. Shannon Jones' office about the bill's status I was told by her aide that it was being discussed due to "interested party concerns"  and that some of the provisions mentioned in the Dispatch would likely be changed. The draft of HB307 was not available to the public, so it's hard to say what if anything  was changed.  The filed bill however, sounds just about what the Dispatch reported. With one exception. Shannon Jones is no longer the sponsor. She  either dumped the bill or was dumped by Ohio Right to Life  for reasons I can only guess.  She was replaced by the....how shall I say it....more complaint Jim Buchy .. (R-Greenville). A couple months ago, Buchy. one of Ohio's favorite anti-aborts was featured on Al Jezerra-English discussing abortion.  When asked why he thought women got abortions he replied, "I've never thought about that." Today's hearing wasn't 'much better. I really wish there was a video of it, but as far as I know none was made. My description won't do it justice. We fell through the rabbithole.Here are some of the questions (paraphrased) asked by committee members and Buchy's responses. I failed to get the name of the first questioner, but the rest are identified. Q:  Social services currently has a year to investigate  the adoption after a child is placed before it is finalized.  Won't this bill force a change in social service procedures? 60 days seems an awfully short time to do a thorough investigation to make sure everything is OK and to get all the paperwork in. A: Because of the short time involved, social workers  will  need to keep the focus on those cases, not on other things.

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John  Patrick Carney (D-Columbus) always good, asked his favorite kind of question. Q:  I'm concerned about advertising.  Have you researched anti-human trafficking laws and authorities on the subject to see if this bill contradicts anti-human trafficking  laws? A:  (mumble) No.

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Carney on tax credits: Q:  This bill has a tax credit for newborns.  What about older children in foster care, who are actually available for adoption now and need families? A:  Obviously, this bill is about newborns.  Foster care is another story.  (Foster care questions and references came up several times, and Buchy shot blanks each time)

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Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) Q:  Is there any provision here for sibling groups?  Giving tax credits for a sibling group adoption.  Say a newborn has older siblings  available for adoption  already and we want to keep them together. Can there be tax credits for that situation. A:  That's an interesting question. And it went on. Buchy  oddly claimed that HB 307 would save the taxpayers money by keeping newborns out of foster care and get into "loving homes"  (as he likes to call them) quickly.   Huh? When was the last time any of us heard of a newborn stuck in foster care? )safe havens  excepted)

  Buchy closed by asking one of the committee members to adopt him.  I"m not kidding!  

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By the end of the testimony I had no idea what this bill is about, even though I do know what it's about . Perhaps Rep. Buchy doesn't HB 307 is ostentatiously supposed to be about "reforming" adoption to be fast and quick and to hell with best practice (which we see little of anyway) , but the subtext is really weird. I  have no idea why Ohio needs to encourage more people to adopt newborns. There is already  a line  of paps, as long as the traffic jam on 315 before the  Michigan game,.waiting to pick up a new baby There may be a small number of people discouraged by long waits and bureaucracy, but who cares?  All those available-for-adoption newborns are going to "loving homes" immediately. Clearly Buchy believes that adoption is about finding newborns for people who "need" them.

 There is nothing in HB 307 to offer economic or other incentives to women to put their newborns up for adoption.  Maybe ORTL has burnt itself out on that. So, no matter how many desperate and childless individuals or couples are encouraged to adopt through these "reforms" (a doubtful claim in itself) how does that change the fact that there aren't that many newborns available for adoption anyway, no matter how great the consumer demand.. The real problem is not abortion,  which strangely didn't come up in testimony once, but that women are keeping and rearing their babies, not tossing them in the adoption mill. So, despite all facts to the contrary, Ohio Right to Life continues to conflate abortion with  adoption (not just "saving" the fetus).  Adoption is  the healthy outcome of a so-called "crisis pregnancy."

 Buchy's message today was inept and fuzzy. If this is an adoption bill, then why are the thousands of Ohio kids aging out in foster care  treated as bad baggage. If adoption fees are to high, put  a cap on them. Is  Buchy trying to keep it a secret that this is a ORTL bill? That this is about abortion.  No, wait a minute it isn't. Or is it?

When  his  excruciating testimony was finished, Buchy's argument seemed to be that all-in-all  HB 307 is needed to relieve the stress of paps waiting for finalization. It's therapeutic. Since when is it therapy the state's job?

NOTE: ORTL president Mike Gonidakis  published a piece on the bill in today’s Life News.  I didn’t incorporate it in this entry, but will use it later.

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I am covering this bill for the Columbus Free Press and hope to have a print piece out  in next Thursday's issue.By then I should be unflummoxed.  It will be much more formal than this blog, which is just a quickly written rundown and notes of today's hearing.

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This is Not Adoption Reform: Ohio Right to Life Proposes cheap & quick adoptions

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Bad news in Ohio.  Ohio Right to Life is ready to launch a new easy adoption  legislative project:  

The bill isn't filed yet, but  it gained traction Monday when the Columbus Dispatch  published:  Abortion foes focus on easing Ohio adoptions

Since the bill isn't up  yet, we can't say what it says exactly, so I'm going by the Dispatch report only.  Here, is a  rundown from Mike Gonidakis,  adoptive father of two and President of Ohio Right to Life:.  .

• Decrease the waiting time for adoption finalization from 1 year to 60 days (Note: this seems to be a mistake.  Under the ORC, adoption finalization can currently take place no less that 6 months after placement.)
• Decrease the eligibility time a man can file with the Ohio Putative Father's Registry (PFR) from 30 days  to 7.
• Require adoption agencies and adoption lawyers to inform fetal fathers (before the birth of the child)  that an adoption plan is being made; thus, giving them more time to file with the PRF (if they can find it)
• Increase the Ohio adoption tax credit from $1500 to $10,000 to be spread out over four years,  substantially offsetting the cost  of the adoption
•  Decrease "birthmother" fraud by requiring adoption agencies and adoption lawyers to make living expense payments provided by paps (prospective adoptive parents) directly to service providers (doctors, landlords, utilities), not to "birthmothers" themselves.  Under current law, these funds go directly from pap to "birthmother".  The  $3000 payment limit would not change.

This proposal has more holes than the proverbial Swiss cheese. Two months is far from enough time for ethical post-placement. follow-up and opens the adoption process to corruption, child abuse, and adoption fraud. even more than it already is.  When I was adopted finalization took approximately a year and  a social worker made at least three unannounced visits to our home between my placement and adoption finalization.. That is not too much to expect today. If you're doing it right, what's the rush? Combined with the PFR   provision (below),  the shortened time frame is no more than a new way to push dads out of the way and hide their children from them..

My other big concern is the PFR.  There is nothing to prevent a woman from claiming she doesn't know the name of the father or giving  a false name and contact information for the father, or just refusing to name him at all, or  naming several men as possible fathers (Hello, Maury!)   It  certainly doesn't require her to tell the putative father that she is even pregnant.   She can just weasel. Moreover, under current law, a man can register with the PFR any time after he has sex with a woman. (according to court rulings when a man has sex  with a woman he's put on notice). Although some men do get snookered, they currently  have plenty of the time to get on the books if they suspect adoption may be afoot. But since the PFR is unadvertised, does it even matter?.  ORTL needs to look at  the current scandals of Baby Veronica and Baby Deserai  among the latest adoption parade of horrors to see  where this will lead. (For more about the the legal situation of putative fathers and the Ohio PFR go to ericksmith.org 

The adoption tax credit sends a very bad message:  adoption welfare.   (What a boon for serial adopters!) What ever happened to  "if you can't afford a child, don't have one?"  bringing up the whole "deserving" issue. 
  
Welfare moms :     Off the dole you go! 
Adoptive parents:   On the dole you go!

I don't have an original source for this quote, but someone said recently in a tweet,  "welfare cuts + adoption tax credits is redistributive wealth." " I couldn't agree more. 

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There is, in fact,  nothing in this measure, as far as we know, that offers "opportunities" for women to keep their children.  Or for that matter opportunities for  them to turn their newborns in for adoption, unless you factor in the Draconian legislation that ORTL pushed through last session. These   new measures include diverting   state Planned Parenthood  funds to  evangelical "crisis pregnancy centers."   requiring abortion providers to  force clients to listen to  fetal heartbeats, and a ban on state-subsidized rape counselors  making  discussing abortion and making abortion referrals. Today the New York Times published a piece covering the full range of Ohio's  new anti-abortion regulations that explains the climate ORTL believes it has  created for   cheap  and easy newborn adoption.  

This bill is really about opportunities to make adoption cheaper and easier for paps..  Goindakis admits as much.  "“We’re trying to make adoptions better, cheaper and faster,”  he told the Dispatch.   "In Ohio, adoption is too expensive, too bureaucratic, inefficient at best, and there is too much hardship and heartache in the process.”

Hardship and heartache  for whom? 

I'm writing this quickly to get the word out.   I'll be writing more in depth later. I'm trying to get a pre-flie copy of the bill or at least a synopsis today.



TWITTER:   Twitter fried my account and I was forced to start a new one.  Besides tweeting The Daily Bastardette I tweet  (and retweeet) about adoption issues, civil rights, freedom of the press,  the corporate state, plus some local stuff. Join me there! Daily Bastardette @DBastardette.

Demons of Adoption Awards 2013:: Voting Open!

Nominations are closed and the voting begins.

Select the most deserving Demon of Adoption for 2013.

 I know it's a difficult task  Competition sponsor Pound Pup Legacy, has gathered an array of  stunning nominees this year:  Nightline Adoption (Capobianco agency), Gladney Center, Adam Pertman, (Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute),  Both Ends Burning ("christian" child grabbers),  Children and Families First, and a satanic host of other duplicitous bottom feeders. And to think that Beelzebub didn't even purchase their the dark souls! Our nominees  simply turned them over to him. Here are the nominees with links to their webpages (thanks to Pound Pup)

• Raymond W Godwin and Nightlight Christian Adoption: for their role in the baby Veronica case;
• Supreme Court of the United States: for their decision in Adoptive Couple v. Baby girl;
• Lifeline Children’s Services: for assisting evangelical adopters to complete international adoptions when other somewhat sane agencies object;
• Frances Fitzgerald (Irish Minister for Children and Youth Affairs): for attempts to promote inter-country adoption outside the Hague Convention;
• Adoption Advocates International (AAI): for their involvement in the adoption of  Hana Grace-Rose Williams;
• Gladney Center for Adoption: for the placement with the Shatto family that led to the death of Russian born adoptee Max Shatto (Maxim Kuzmin);
• Both Ends Burning Campaign: for producing the documentary Stuck and the promotional bus tour associated with this movie;
• Christian Homes And Special Kids (CHASK): for their role in assisting parents to "re-home" their unwanted adopted children;
• Lutheran Social Services of Illinois: for employing social worker Elizabeth Thomas-Colwell who was formerly a licensed social worker (LCSW) in the state of Illinois. There is reason to believe that she was involved in poor practices and potentially illegal adoptions;
• Children in Families First (CHIFF): for its slick marketing campaign supporting and driving legislation (Children In Families First Act of 2013) to turn back the clock on inter-country adoptions by providing authority to USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security to bypass the Hague Convention Regulations, current US Immigration laws, and International Standards on Child Welfare;
• Adam Pertman: for claiming to be a critic of the adoption system, while at the same time promoting the interest of the adoption industry;
• Mardie Caldwell: for maintaining baby farms, which are categorized by race;
• Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute: for giving their seal of approval to persons and organizations that promote the interests of the adoption industry and pushing agency friendly legislation in Congress.

As always I'm torn.  So many  obscene child harvesters,  but only one winner. I may put off my vote for a few days while I think about it.

Go to Pound Pup Legacy for details and a discussion on nominations and the  online ballot

Happy Voting!

Our Future is in Our Hands: a message from Ron Morgan: Support James Lane

The recent news stories,
documenting  adoptee abuse in great detail, is an opportunity for us to strike for our rights.  While I'm writing up Bastard Nation response  I'm posting a very important message from Ron Morgan. Take the fire and run with it! 

Ron Morgan:

Well, it’s happened again. The media reacts to a breaking story revealing the maltreatment of adoptees by interviewing a bunch of non-adoptees. PBS gave Adam Pertman of the Adoption Institute a forum to react to the bomb-shell Reuters “re-homing” series, and you know what he said?

“Derp, I didn’t know!!!”

This is why it is CRUCIAL for us to support candidates who understand, embrace and advocate for Adoptee Rights. James Lane is a Late Discovery Adoptee running for New York City Public Advocate. James Lane deserves our support.

Don’t sit on your hands while so-called experts and self-described advocates use their positions of POWER to pontificate about our rights!

This is NO JOKE, people. As adoptees our future is in our hands. Write letters, demonstrate, button-hole your legislators, but take a couple of minutes to click on the link below and DONATE to an adoptee running to be our ADVOCATE! Donate to James Lane today!

https://votejameslane.nationbuilder.com/donate

And if YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RUNNING FOR OFFICE, let’s talk….

Donate to this candidate votejameslane.nationbuilder.com Help Elect The Green Party's First Candidate for Public Advocate of New York City

James talks about his adoption and adoptoin secrecy here 

NOTE:  You do not have to be a resident of New York City or New York State to donate.

Spread the word!

Ohio Birthparent Group - Sept. 2013

September 2013

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ROAR Campaign for Adoptee Rights Like birthparents, adoptees have historically been excluded from the policy processes that shape their adoption experiences. Many OBG birthparents have been active in the 2013 ROAR Campaign for adoptee rights, which kicks back in gear this month for the Fall legislative session. We hope you'll join us in supporting the rights of all Ohio adoptees to have unconditional access to their original birth certificates. Find out how to participate in ROAR's grassroots action campaign! Grandparents & Adoption General Adoption Support Meeting Tuesday, September 10th, 7-9pm Karl Road Library This month, our general meeting will focus on the experiences of birth grandparents and adoptive grandparents. How can grandparents best support adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents? In what ways can we support the grandparents in our lives? What unique rewards and challenges frame the grandparent experience in adoption? Co-sponsored by Adoption Network Cleveland, this meeting is open to the public. Learn more... Birthparent Support Meeting Please Note Location Change for September! Sunday, September 22nd, 2-4pm BEXLEY PUBLIC LIBRARY Open to birth mothers and birth fathers only, this meeting is a private space to meet others who understand this life-long journey. Learn more...

Demons of Adoption 2013: nominations now open!

It's that time again! Pound Pup Legacy has sent  out the call for nominations for its prestigious Demons of Adoption Award 2014. This is the seventh year the award has been issued.  Acknowledging the large adoption bottom feeder population  from which to choose and the tough decisions  ahead, Niels Hoovgeen, keeper of the pup pound writes: It will be tough this time around. Over the last years we have dredged the cesspool named Adoptionland and condemned the practices of such agencies like: Bethany Christian Services and LDS Family Services, such trade associations of adoption service providers like the National Council for Adoption and the Joint Council on International Children's Services, and even showed our utmost contempt for the United States Congress. No feather weights by any means. Although nominations opened only yesterday, Capobianco, Inc took the far lead already.  Other early contenders include Gladney Adoption Center, Adoption Advocates International (Washington State),  Irish Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Frances Fitzgerald, and baby broker Jennifer Potter. Go to the nomination site to nominate and support your personal "favorite" bottom feeding adoption demon. Nominations close September 30, and voting will follow shortly. Feel free to forward the news! Cross posted to The Daily Bastardette. and Bastard Nation.

Jean Paton: Biography of the mother of the US adoption reform movement to be published this fall!

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but when in the mid-1990s when I first got seriously involved in adoptee rights, I had never heard of Jean Paton.

My ignorance was disabused at the Seattle AAC conference (I think it was 2000) E. Wayne Carp, who had just released his pioneering work Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption was  first day keynoter.  Among the special guests that day was  Jean Paton.

As I remember it, some of us Bastard Nationals were running around with little homemade "nametags" with Bastards are Beautiful" handprinted on them with a magic marker--mainly as a dig at the goody-2-shoes AAC crowd and, of couse, to advertise ourselves.  Someone, and I don't remember who, (maybe it was Jean) pointed out that this phrase  was not original with Bastard Nation. It was an original Jean Patonism.

Well, who was Jean Paton?  Only the mother of the adoptee rights movement in America! That's who!

It was almost like opening your OBC and learning that you had a name and a history.  As a trained historian I was shocked to learn that I hadn't done my homework. I knew about Joanne Wolf Small,   B J Lifton, ALMA and a few other historical anecdotes but not Jean Paton, Orphan Voyage and the roots of our movement. I  think I actually started to cry a little.  We weren't in a vacuum.  Hells bells!  The movement had started 40 years (now 60 years) earlier and we were just hearing about it now!

I was fortunate enough to meet Jean that day. She was up in years  but spry and sharp as ever. We talked for awhile and she  approved of Bastard Nation. I didn't have any further contact with her until Measure 58 passed in Oregon and she sent us a congratulatory note.

I've learned much about Jean since then, but now there is an opportunity for all of us to learn much more.

 This November, Jean Paton and the Struggle for American Adoption  Reform will be published by the University of Michigan Press.  Written by Wayne Carp, (who incidentally authored Adoption Politics:  Bastard Nation and Ballot Initiative 58.  the book  is a full length biography of Jean and the birth of the adoptee rights movement in the United States..  Jean worked with Professor Carp to see this book brought to fruition, but unfortunately passed away before she could see it publication.

Jean Paton and Wayne Carp

Professor Carp had unfettered access to Jean and her archives (an historian's dream) He  writes of his experience:

Over the course of the next several years, I received her vast correspondence, which she sent me. I could hardly have imagined the extent of it: it was a biographer’s Eldorado. Jean had made an onion-skin carbon copy of every letter she ever wrote over a period of fifty years—filling some 50 or more boxes— and had carefully filed away almost every sheet of paper in a complex system of file folders. Paton’s own writings range from a discussion of being suckled at the breast of her mother for the first four months of life to discussions of every aspect of adoption reform to reports of her health weeks before her death. In between are drafts of memos, essays, and articles she never published; reviews of her books and media notices of her travels; account books; typewritten notes of books she read; a detailed diary she kept between 1950 and 1953; memos of every phone call she received related to adoption reform; and even sixty-year-old college papers. Just as important for this study, Jean kept every letter, Christmas card, search group’s newsletter, and solicitation she ever received. These materials include inquiries from triad members seeking advice about how to reconnect with their original families, triad members requesting guidance on how to organize search and reunion groups, and correspondence from publishers, editors, and congressmen. Except for me, (and Jean, of course) no one has read this enormous corpus of Jean Paton’s work.

The  University of Michigan Press has already set up a webpage for the book.  More importantly, Professor Carp has published his own webpage: The Biography of Jean Paton: the Mother of the Adoption Reform Movement.  The page includes out-takes from the book (parts that needed edited out for space or other considerations,) photos, documents,  information on book events, and other material.  Material is being added periodically.  An adjunct Facebook page, The Biography of Jean Paton, went live on Monday,

You can order an advanced copy of the book amazon.com

This is a much needed and important addition to the growing corpus of adoption studies. We can't wait to read it.

Photos courtesy of E. Wayne Carp.